Is it us versus them again? four forces part four

This or That =- Right or Wrong - Us or Them

Well the last few posts have been dedicated to primal influences in our (U.S. and Western) culture that influence how we make meaning of things and thus seek peace and joy in life.  So far we have considered industrialization which has dominated  our work lives and educational systems, science or more specifically the scientific method which has dominated the way we gather and evaluate knowledge and elevated the notion that predicting and controlling how parts of a whole act can provide the Truth and what should be believed, television (or more generally the multimedia-visual input we bring into life using broadcast systems to present things on a screen and now we are looking into the fourth force—the tendency or need to look at foreign affairs and nearly everything else regarding  others as a “dualism.”  

I —yes I am starting with an open admission that this is a lifelong battle topic for me.  I have never understood the gravitation that most people have toward categorizing  other humans, where they live, and how they behave  in a manner that is either like me or completely the opposite  of me… Nonetheless just because I don’t quite understand this need it doesn’t make it any less powerful  and so observations  about it seem to be called for.  

Now that I am of an age and all humans  of an age, I can look back on a “lived through history.”  I can therefore remember  personally being taught that the communists the Russians  were evil and wanted to take over  the world.  We were in the space race with them, we were in the arms race with them, We wanted to stop their advance and the advance of communists everywhere on the planet because once one country falls the next one could and would fall to these evil thinkers who are godless and such.  Because we believed this  so completely we held atomic bomb attack drills in school where we had to get under our desk and “duck and cover.”  This meant we spent real school time teaching kids that a wood or metal desk would protect them if they were the target of an atomic weapon attack.  However, if that were true why didn’t we just build our school out of that stuff our desks were made of?   Oh and we were supposed to be quiet—why?  We’re there some secret  red spies in third grade who had a hot line to the folks in Red Square  waiting to reveal our strategic location? Wait..I digress..

Well the point is that as time went by the Russians power and influence lessened and communism didn’t quite work out the way it was drawn up in real world terms.  We learned that the Russians weren’t that great after all we could beat them in hockey and we made  them tear down a wall in Germany.  We beat them to the moon and we had better jeans and video games than they do… In short we couldn’t fuel what we did based upon beating them at something anymore.  So now what. Well given recent historical events we find it really tempting to hate the Russians again but it’s not the old Russia.  We could hate China but we pay them to build our iPhones cheap and so we can maintain a high profit margin.  China  pretends at communism  but not when playing in the international market.  So … with the lack of a global enemy we have faltered a bit in having something to be unified over.  What then has happened?

Well that’s simple… we’ve turned that need to compare and divide on ourselves.  We are either “red” or blue… Why can’t states be purple  or yellow or aquamarine?  Crayons come in big boxes with a sharpener built in (how many times  did you ever use that?  The big question is..why do we crave this simplicity?  Are we afraid to live in the complicated stew of trying to understand people. Rather than trying to control them?  It is easier to urge and oppose rather than understand and cocreate our circumstances.  For so many people we have not been taught how to take advantage of the pieces of a puzzle to form a beautiful picture when just sorting things into two piles  is so much faster.  When survival of humans wad more dependent upon identifying creatures that could and would kill us dualism was a bit more important however, the last I time I looked I wasn’t brushing my Wooly Mamouth  loincloth and chanting around this new-dangle cooking appliance called fire.  

Okay the purpose of this entry isn’t to cast evaluations of humans out there …it is designed to bring attention to the notion that dualism is  something shaping the ways we seek peace and joy and bring meaning to our experiences.  

Now…that we have illustrated these four forces… it becomes time to provide some “implications” and that is the business of the next entry…. 

 

What were watching last night Universal Force Part III

 The Four Sorces Part III —“Television”

Well we’ve sort of looked at industrialization/standardization as something that dominates or did dominate the workplace and our schools along with the narrative that if you try harder. And compete you will do better and better etc…. Then we looked at how defining the world in terms of science has  led to advances, however it also encourages us to break all things into little pieces, assume that these pieces always equal the whole and that we can predict and control the world and the people in it.  The implications for seeking peace and joy  related to these two forces alone  are staggering  and yet there  are more things to explore before a “summary” of sorts might be offered and the third of these epic forces is ….”Televison” and the changes. In it that are fundamentally altering the world.   Let’s tune in shall we?

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane shall we Uncle Milty?  Unlike “cultural products like say painting, theatre, music, dance,oh and let’s say books “television is a new deal.  Oh and it got it’s start during the New Deal and just barely.  If you are 75 or older there is a good chance. You remember not having a television in your house.  If you are in your 60’s  you grew up with only two or three channels and you developed some expertise  in going out of doors and spinning your attendance so that the “snow and shadows  could be reduced.  If you grew up  just a few years later you had “cable and three channels went to 20 or 30 and then to 60 then 100 then if you lived in the right place and had the right paycheck around 500 channels.   Well and now “television”  is “streaming digital”  where this thing we call a television offered tens of thousands of shows/movies/sounds when you want to watch it.  Oh and since this includes  YouTube and tick-tock… we are able to watch virtually unlimited content everywhere all the time.  

So what does this all mean for seeking peace and joy?

When TV was young it was a unifying force.  Everybody knew that everybody was watching one of  three nationally shown shows and a few local shows.  We all had something to follow in common and talk about the next day…. A whole country was wondering. Who shot J.R.?  We all watched as the riderless  horse led the mourning masses to the eternal flame and we all knew  the name Archie Bunker Hawkeye Pierce, and who rode trigger.  And then there were reruns… and millions still watched the same shows where people ent to places where everybody knows your name and had questions on their minds like  will Ginger, the skipper and his little buddy and the professor get off that darling island this time?  Sure some of us wondered  how there were six kids when Mike and Carol never touched each other in the bedroom and wasn’t it amazing that Lude and Laura never had to pass gas or tinkle?  anyway the older generation went from radio  where all programming was pretty local to a media that was pretty unified and so our cultural experience  of entertainment  became a common thing we could share.   And then…. 

Technology started giving us more and more choices and more and more decisions and more and more  and more and more and more and is still giving us more until  now the programming  we could access and produce went from a narrow range. To something that offered much but also drives us  into smaller and smaller  bunches and where we fight not to produce  similar things but to produce unique things and hope that  we gain a little fame  or go viral so to speak.   The same thing.holds true for print media or digital print data… In short seeking peace and joy with others has become far for complex as we once  could believe in what we watched however now we can watch anything we might choose to believe.  

In short this thing known as the TV once pulled us together  and now it often leads us to be staring  at a screen by ourselves.   We may alll think of TV as if it is what it was when we grew up… and depending when you grew up that’s an entirely different thing than it is now.  And yet… what we see on these screens is still a dominant. Force in how we look at the world and when we look at it too.   When some of us grew up it was the six o’clock news or the 10 o’clock news and now everything is breaking news. 24 hours a day.  Oh and sports?  Well we used to watch one baseball game a week and maybe a couple of pro football games and one college  game a week.  We had that in common along with that poor guy crashing off the end of that ski jump feeling the agony of defeat.  

We’ll talk more about this force in the summary, however for now. Let’s all take a moment to think about how TV/video has changed in our culture  and in our ways of understanding the things we experience.    This whole discussion  will continue after these brief messages at the same bat time and on the same bat channel.  

We Interupt. Our Irregularly Scheduled Program-

 We Interupt. Our  Four-Part Series where the Next Topic is “Television—for a Sunday/Monday 8-line rhyme 

Hark ye crooks collecting fees

Stop selling fears it’s a  disease

Don’t worship greed with so much ease

And spreading debt through mock degrees

We vow to no more bend our knees

We’ll lift our heads and say -Oh Please 

Blood from our stones you shall not squeeze

Today’s that day we choose to seize 

Economic Policy

Too many robots? Should we stop?

 Four Forces of Nature for the Modern Era —Part I—Industrialization

Don’t Worry We’ll get to the seeking peace and joy part in about 700 words or so… However, skipping  right to that would be the same as riding a roller coaster  that only had one hill and only went straight… let’s not glorify such  adventures shall we?  

As stated in the previous entry the next four entry  will feature what might be characterized as major influences on the environments in which we bring  meaning to our experiences,you know, the factors that shape  the landscape we walk around in every day and factors that are so invasive  and engulfing that they are in some ways like water is to fish or Amazon is to new credit card  holders?  

It’s hard to label these  four ideas… are they factors, forces,themes?   Wells funny little wizard (Jedi) informs me that “force it is we will choose young Skywalker….

So the first Force  we will ponder is INDUSTRIALIZATION

Now since “industrialization” is a long word we’re going to use a couple of shortcuts for it.  Moving forward it will be known as “the BIG I”. Or IA for “the Industrial Age and of course  IR will be the code for the Industrial Revolution.   Now we might not use the short forms all the time—you know it depends upon how tired these fingers get.  

Which came first …the industrial  age or the industrial revolution?    Was it mentality of standardizing  everything so that we could build more faster and with more similarities than ever before?  Bottom line—-who cares?  You can read all about  some of the first inventions  that heralded in the Industrial Age.  For the purposes we are pondering  the only thing that matters is not how much cotton we could pick, how many yards of wool we could weave, or how many Model T’S  we could roll out as long as you wanted black—We are talking “industrial philosophy or the philosophy  of industrialization.  You see at some point  we started to value standardized things and standardized people to make these standardized things.  Thing because the prizes we sold to  tell people how “good” or rich they were and boy did things sell—and they still do.  However, in order to make these  standardized things in standardized  ways we had to create humans that were standardized too.   So… we had to start putting all the square , triangular, and polygonal people and their beautifully diverse talents  and spirits  into a machine to achieve the uniformity required.  How did we do it?   We did it with schools… When did all students  go out into the world?  Well when they completed 8 or 12  grades for the most part unless our machine needed specially shaped parts to crank out products and then we used colleges and specialized programs to add apiece in here Ann’s there and had special ceremonies  to tell people that they are now just the way we want them to be.   One of the challenges in seeking peace and joy these days is that the human robots we create in schools no longer fit the systems we use to produce most goods in a way that pushes the productivity curve.   So schools are failing but they sure worked well for a good long time.  

What  else did we standardize?  

The success Narative  or put most simply…. If you work hard and find  the right job match you wil succeed and if you try harder you will succeed even more and the more you succeed the better your life will be and the better person you are.  Holy crap did this story work very well … in fact we decided that capitalism  would be the economic  game we adopted in America because it so well fits the  industrial call to produce more and to try hard to succeeed more.  We  are so tied.into this that even in our creative social media experiences  we seem to be rewarded  when we have more “friends” Followers, or links in our networks.  More  is better… 

In the industrial era you could (notice it is past tense sort of). You can be secure (or you could) and always find someone you were out performing so you could feel good.   You could almost always have more things than the generation before you and more than some of. Your neighbors depending on how you decided to define “neighbors.”  Oh and this is/was a sweet system of thought and actions until very recently…  While some would argue that we have moved  beyond the Industrial Age… I’d say not so fast…. Companies and their owners or the people who profit from them are still valuing unified  narratives and robotic  workforce mentalities and in fact so much some are pretty much just going with actual robots.  

We hear a lot about how some kids today don’t want to work. Or work hard and that back in the day we worked hard etc… There is always  a little truth in these types of statements…. However, are companies the same as they were?  Are paths to “success” the same I’m not so sure… Even more worth  pointing out is … now pay attention we’re about to use an odd metaphor an analogy so to speak… some symbolism…

Have you ever been drinking or watched someone who was and it became evident that you or someone let’s say your goofy uncle herb  was obviously blasted and drinking  more let’s say that 9th Jack and Coke wasn’t going to make him one bit funnier?    Well maybe we are getting to the point where humans can’t get any more “industrial”.  After all in the U. S. We are now producing as much in one month as we produced  in a whole year in 1950.   The average person  (or someone in their family) carries a computer  that is far more powerful than the one used to send a rocket to the moon)  and does that in their pocket.   We eat more, we travel further either in person or via remote experiences, and we have access to more information input  every day than all the generations that came before us had combined.  Maybe,,,, just maybe… as a spiritual and living being… we’ve reached the end of of our rainbow when it comes to this industrial path?  

Okay… the SEEKING PEACE AND JOY. Perspective

The Big I  was are bridge to all kinds of experiences and the canvas upon which we drew the pictures that symbolized  what it all means.  Now however, the bridge that the big I was  going from the start of our lives all the way  through to the end is falling out from beneath our feet…. We don’t understand the nature of the change and we can’t build a parachute  with the tools we have…. So many of us keep falling thinking… when will things be “normal” again..  So what if… 

Falling is the new human experience?   Can we as individuals and as collections and groups of people  “normalize  more ambiguity?  I believe we can… however we are going to have to adopt three  mantras…. These are

Uncertainty does not equal or have to signal fear.  Uncertainty can be an invitation to adventure  and new colors in your crayon box.  

Second —Not all people NEED to believe in the same overarching  concept of success or “productivity” We don’t need too many more ways to watch video or get around the world or foods to eat or goodness knows weapons to kill stuff with.  We don’t need to be right we only need to be authentic.

Three and this all for todayWe need  to throw out the idea that people’s lives  always reflect cause and effect experiences that move “forward” in a linear  manner…. 

Well … that’s enough for today.. we’ll come back to this in “some other rumblings’. At the end of this four part pogo sticking. Through philosophy.   

Peace.  

Tired of thinking outside the box try just underneath the triangle?

 How to live Outside the Triangle (Box?)

This podcast called “Akimbo” by Seth Godin strikes  a chord this morning and the Seeking Peace and Joy Universe needs to use this chord over and over just like CCR uses the same three chords over and over why?… because it worked then and it works now.   

So in the next  four entries  this blog will focus on  concepts that have shaped  our stories so much that we may not even realize they are coloring our world.  But today is just the intro and it will be brief and hopefully a little whimsical.  The four themes to be explored in coming muses are:  (at the bottom so read on)

For now if you can think outside the box and get solutions, what  happens when you do other things in proximation to other shapes?   

For example what happens if you sing outside the triangle?  What results when you write outside the octagon?  Who will fall all over a painting when  we paint just below the parallelogram?  Who benefits if we scribble  above the square?  How lovely would life be if we dialogue inside the diamonds or verbalize adjacent to the ven diagram?Will we fail if we predict beneath parabolas? How many problems get simpler if we share hints amidst hexagons?  

Okay don’t get all bent out of shape— the next four entries will look at seeking  peace and joy in the. Context of  

1. Industrialization 
2. Our current cultural use and stance on science
3. Television and its evolution. And 
4. Dualism in foreign. Relations

Okay… this has been enough rambling around the rhomboid  for now… more soon 

Learning to Read (or fly)

 Learning to Read and Reading to Learn

Just a few minutes ago  aconcept came into my awareness.  You have to learn to read before you can read to learn. In turn, that means someone has to learn how to teach you to read and maybe  someone has to teach you how to read to learn.  Now that means someone  had to learn how to teach you to read to learn and someone had to read about learning  to teach you how to read to learn and you could choose to learn how someone teaches. Others to learn or read in order read to learn.  Confused yet?  So which comes first?—the learning or the reading?   Neither I suspect… maybe it’s the wanting to understand  what others think and say and wanting people to say what they think so we all can think about  what others say?  Oh so.. does that mean we all learn more if we answer some questions and question some answers?   …and

If we learn lessons do we pass them along?  Do we do this often enough?  It seems in the seeking peace and joy universe it’s important to do so… and  there’s this song I wrote a few years back, however  when I was thinking about all the ideas above, I couldn’t remember if I have really ever shared the lyrics to that song and somehow  right now seemed like a good time to pass these lessons along.  So Here we are

Lessons

I’ve learned great lessons from professors and books

Graceful half-drunken women and burned out fry cooks

I thought it was time that I passed them along

So I sat up one night and I wrote down this song….here it goes

The wiser i get the more that I’ve found

Your body just carries your spirit around

And there’s a new circus around every turn

The best thing to do is pay attention and learn

And pass all these lessons to the next passer by

Try to enjoy life and understand why

But if why eludes you don’t wallow in frets

Don’t let your butterfly wings get weighed dow with regrets 

(Chorus so of) 

And breathe and stretch and dance your own dance

And laugh and smile when life gives you the chance

V2

You’ll rarely finish but you’ll often restart

Take your brain with you but follow your heart

And don’t compromise on the things you might change

Understand.normal but celebrate strange

Don’t chase the chaos nor worship control

But run it full throttle when you’re on a roll 

(Chorus)

V3

I’ve heard sermons in bar roooms  and in churches learned  shoulds

But some of the best prayers I’ve ever heard were whispered in woods

And don’t be afraid to believe in forever

But be careful with words like always and never

Don’t shake your fist in the mirror when your patience wears thin

Every dream has its time don’t let apathy win

(Chorus)

V4

You will try to help many but you can’t walk in their place

You can’t battle their  demons especially ones they won’t faceThese are my lessons nearly all that I know

And if you learn half of these well you’ll find your glow

And Once you fink this  well you will go far

To sum it all up…you’ll become who you are 

And you will have learned how to  chorus.. Anyway I’ve asked you read enough today and hope it was to learn… I’ve learned  just buy thinking about  it… Peace.

Making money? with words or just going to the dogs?

 Are these Words Money or is Seeking Peace and Joy going to the Dogs

So  in a few words I apologize for not writing much lately…. I literally wandered off the seeking peace and joy path and got wrapped up in my ego and greed to be recognized as hurt and right rather than  figuring out how to let the tools I know flow and create  different circumstances.  Well because that wasn’t working so much it was time to twist some concepts around and realize that using words was how I personally bring meaning in the peace and joy universe.  Like people assign the value of work and possessions by giving them a symbol which is money many of us symbolize our meanings and our emotions, and our ideas using or “with words”. So it is time for me to back to using these words starting right now.  Having said this I believe I expressed this better in the spoken word in the podcast that really got this seeking peace and joy train rolling again so click  on the link below to get the rest of the message and please come back soon there will be more to poke your intellect, your funny bone, and maybe your imagination… More soon and remember your thoughts and the words you use have great value and they are  thus Money.   Peace 

https://peaceandjoy505.libsyn.com/are-words-your-moneyhttps://peaceandjoy505.libsyn.com/are-words-your-money please listen

Embrace Balance

• 

  Life today’s a funky gig

Demand folks either zag or zig

Use labels to make small gaps big

Can’t be a Newton AND a fig

Debate lipsticks for every pig

Now change your hair or  find a wig

Play some music  that you dig

Then tango waltz moonwalk  or jig 

Welcome To the Throne -What would you do with a crown if you Had One?

 Good Morning You’re the Queen (or King)

So because it’s the biggest thing in the English speaking world (and I usually don’t  care what most people say or think)  it seems important to muse on the life and times (sort of) of Queen Elizabeth II.   Now she went to the Great Castle  beyond at age 96 after being queen for 70 years.  Let’s unpack that a bit shall we?

She was queen before the Beatles were well the Beatles.  She was queen before Elvis was big.   When she became queen the price of gas was. About 19 cnts a gallon, a loaf of bread was about 16 cents.  A new car sold for around $1,500 and a brand new house went for $9,000 and that was in Boston.  What were people bringing home for pay?  Well about $3,500 a year.  Now you might  be saying people worked  harder back then and the dollar went so much farther.  Not so fast Amos and Andy…

Even adjusted for inflation today’s gross domestic product (what we produce in goods and services)  is roughly 12 times what it was in 1952.  What that means is that the average worker today  makes good and services worth  12 times what their  grandparents did.  Sure technology  has a lot to do with tht, however, let’s not get all high and mighty about the good old days of work alright?

In fact if you use productivity. Data based upon history alone the minimum wage should be more than$23 dollars an hour nationwide.  In most states it should be $25.00 or so.  

Anyway it is hard to imagine  going to bed one night knowing that there is a good chance that in the morning you’ll be king or queen.  But what if….?

So let’s say you wake up one day and have the power to say something that will be heard by millions around the world…what would say?  

Well some royal thoughts haven’t gone over so great…like that “let them eat cake” tweet.  Oh and how about  the strategy taken by King George the third… who figured Americans would always be loyal subjects.   

I’ll offer this as my  royal declaration.   

Dear loyal subjects,

After consulting with the lords and ladies of the realm and my court jester it seems to me that we all need  to remember the following three edicts.

Lift each other because together we sing a better song

Be humble  what we believe now might be wrong

Keep learning if we wish to stay strong

Love each other  and we’ll get along

Oh and if you don’t have one of these fancy crowns… wear sunscreen

Well in reality  I’ll never be King and few folks ever will…. And like. With most things it’s not all that helpful to play the if/then game.    On the other hand maybe if we put together a royal edict and follow it—we might find some Crown Jewels on the road to seeking peace and joy.  

Until you kiss a frog or find the glass slipper… rise and take your seat at the round table who ever you are and where ever  you may roam… the grail awaits. 

Take a sip

Life With No Strings Attached?

 “No Strings attached?”

So in yesterday’s mail there were “special offers”.  You know the kind that are “exclusive” just for you?  Now I’m pretty darn sure VISA and my local cable provider. Didn’t have a meeting one day and say “There’s this guy  in Michigan and we really like him as a customer so let’s get on it and design an offer…you know  just for him damn it!”   Every day we are bombarded with these offers and even more troubling than the fact that they are somehow special is the fact that  at the end of the offer there  lies the caveat… you know “the fine print” the disclaimers.    In other words the “strings that are attached.”  It a way  it makes  one think…I wish there weren’t strings attached” —right?    

Well……….HOLD YOUR HORSES…

 Before we go make generalizations about strings let’s stop a second and  imagine.  

What would a guitar sound like with  no strings attached?  How limited. Would shoe design be with no strings attached?  How dark would the basement be if you couldn’t attach a string to that simple  light and would your vintage ceiling fan work?  How  about a kite?  Let’s say you somehow got it in the air…good-bye kite!   Oh and that. Yo-yo?    

What  reason would you have to visit Cawker City Kansas?   After all no string (twine). Would mean no ball of string that measures. Over 40 feet around.  

What’s the Seeking Peace and Joy Connection?

Well you see it pays to give. Some attention to the nature and utility of  the things that connect. You to others and the nature of these connections.  Personallly I have a bunch of friends and followers on social media platforms and most of the time the effort it takes to stay connected and the headaches caused by these apps. Is more than a fair price  to pay for the support I get.from these relationships and the lessons I learn from the experiences  of so many good folks.  Sometimes I am able to use my strings to connect others and sometimes I am able to just let the string  lay there awhile and then pick it up just when I need to be connected again.     

Oh.and thoughts string together too…. For example just now when I was thinking about pulling together  some friends  I thought about casting a line and fishing  well…that would be different without  strings or a a nylon line wouldn’t it.  What are you going to do hold a worm in your hand and lean off a log while trying to sit in your lawn chair and drink a beer?  Good Luck!  

 In short, maybe we need to pay some attention to which strings we choose and who is pulling them and to take special care of the ones that have goodness  at the end or can help us or help us help others.  Maybe we could be aware of those times when strings  are attached and why and chose to hold on to some and choose to cut others and let them float…. Oh and what about the string on a helium balloon.   You can hold it for a while and when you want to set that balloon free to see how far it will go and let many people share it and see it then you can let it go….    

Well…. I’m not going to wind  40 feet  worth, however,  I’m wrapping this up for now… I’ve strung this out far enough.  

Reading between the lines part three it’s a comic but not a comedian plus a bonus rhyme

 Time its value folks debate

Time in days we track by date

Time goes fast when we are late

Time move slow  when we must wait

Time so cherished  when life’s’s great

Time used well we celebrate

Timeshall pass and seal your fate

Time too short to waste on hate

Tick Tock  

So the beginning of this is a literary appetizer I shared  it on some other social media a couple days ago, however  I wrote it for all the readers  that dare consume my idle ramblings.    Okay now pack to the “library  “reading” arena. Part 3

If you’ve been reading along and remember if you don’t read along the teacher might skip the person in front. Of. You or they may pull the old “I have to use the bathroom” ploy  and thus you’ll have to read aloud today and not tomorrow.  Oh come on now don’t tell me. You weren’t one of those people who tried to guess just when your turn would come or  at the very least you knew the kids who had a hard time reading and felt crappy for them.   So anyway if you’ve been reading along you know we have been chatting up the Library of Congress a bit.  I thought for now we could put a bookmark. In the discussion by giving a nod to one of the least respected  sections  in most libraries  including the good old loc.  The comic book section.   

Now you might think that geeky  Melvin  who lived down the block and always wore black socks with his shorts had a big comic book collection, but alas …. The goood old Library. Of congress holds the world’s largest publicly held  collection of comics.  We’re talking issues from more than  12,000 different comic series and a total of over 140,000 unique issues.  Since these issues have not been graded for quality and there is no plan to ever sell them at auction, it is hard to estimate the value of this collection but it goes  far beyond  the dime a piece that many of these gems have marked on the cover and probably  even well beyond the $4.00 each that most of these pint-sized paperbacks sell for now.  

So how many of these comic books. Do I own?  How many have I ever owned?  Why does the library of Congress own them?  

Well I own zero and have never owned any.  It would have been fun to be in the room where it happened—no not the Hamilton song—the room where somebody said…yep the Library of Congress needs to have comics.  Okay, maybe  many of our lawmakers can only digest short books with lots of pictures written for junior high boys?   I could see that given some of the other things congress folks have done.   

Now what’s the “Seeking Peace and Joy”. Point?

Like so many of you books have been and will always be  an important part of how I engage in learning and no one can read. Every  book of any type let alone every book of every type.  I would hazard a guess that there are some morals to the stories in comics and that they spark the imagination of some people…. If so, then they are the fuel. For thought that runs some mental engines and for that I salute the 1938 introduction of truth justice and the American Way… Imagine what one word  could mean… What if the saying were “truth, justice,  “OR” the American way?   What if the Man of Steel was the Man of Plastic and was stickier than a speeding taxi?   Anyway…. We have this Library of Congress and you can use it to answer questions and raise some others.  Seeking Peace and Joy is a trip through the learning library of life and every library. Has its place.   The only thing to do now is leave you with my favorite quote. About books and reading    

According. To Groucho Marx….

Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read…

Live and Learn —reverse and repeat